"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Thursday, July 07, 2016

Street Executions

I wish I had more to say on the two state-sanctioned street executions in the last forty-eight hours, but Ed and many others have pretty well covered it. Plus, res ipsa loquitur and all.

Noting that Louisiana is an open-carry state (though Alton Sterling, as a convicted felon, should still not have possessed a gun), or that Philando Castile had a concealed-carry permit and is seen on video as alerting the officer to that fact as he tried to hand over his identification, will mean nothing to the usual cops-are-always-right-even-when-they're-wrong morons. Nor will you hear a peep from the gun nuts, for obvious reasons.

It would be nice to think that the Department of Justice would crawl up the ass of every national, regional, state, and metropolitan police union and fuck them sideways on excessive use of force, but we all know that won't happen either. But whether or not it does any good, it needs to be pointed out that -- for starters -- Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Robert Dear, and Dylann Stormfront Roof were all brought in safely and alive after they had killed multiple people, forty-two people total between them.

Keep that in mind some lying piece of shit from the FOP gets in front of a mic and lectures you about how scary the job is and how they had no other choice. Bull. Fucking. Shit. Ten bucks says no one loses their job over either of these most recent civilian shootings.

This is how it is in a police state, just as it is in a true authoritarian or totalitarian state: conformity is culturally enforced, compliance is expected and enforced, by violence if necessary, and frequently even when it isn't necessary.